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• plane table
  plane table

  noun

  a drawing board mounted on a tripod, used in the field, with an alidade, for surveying tracts of land.
• plane-table
  plane-table

  verb (used with or without object)

  to survey with a plane table.

plane table

¹ American  

Or plain table

noun

Surveying.

1. a drawing board mounted on a tripod, used in the field, with an alidade, for surveying tracts of land.

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plane-table ² American  

[playn-tay-buhl] / ˈpleɪnˌteɪ bəl /

verb (used with or without object)

plane-tabled, plane-tabling

1. to survey with a plane table.

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plane table British  

noun

1. a surveying instrument consisting of a drawing board mounted on adjustable legs, and used in the field for plotting measurements directly

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verb

1. to survey (a plot of land) using a plane table

Etymology

Origin of plane table¹

First recorded in 1600–10

Origin of plane-table²

First recorded in 1870–75

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plane table plane-table

Theodolite and plane table work are not suited to very cold climates.

From South with Scott by Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, Baron Mountevans

The word is found in some older English Dictionaries, and in France and Italy is still applied to the traversing index of a plane table or of a sextant.

From The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Henry Yule

His plane-table survey and rock collections are practical evidence of work carried out in weather which made it seldom short of an ordeal.

From The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 by Sir Douglas Mawson

Gujjar Singh, with the plane-table, was detained by bad weather higher up the valley.

From Mount Everest the Reconnaissance, 1921 by Charles Kenneth Howard-Bury

On this pass, whilst taking some plane-table observations, I was within an ace of being detected from an unexpected quarter.

From Memoir of William Watts McNair by J. E. Howard

Sometimes I went on with Imam Sharif, one soldier and a servant carrying the plane-table.

From Southern Arabia by Theodore Bent

To a large extent the plane-table is used.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 by Various

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